We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Spillers a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing the joyous reactions from others when they encounter my work. I feel understood, because my work brings me the same feeling. Whether it be my middle schoolers or adults reacting, it makes me happy to see something I’ve created evoke such an emotion. Also, being a painter allows me to communicate using color and images. I’ve noticed that when I’m painting, my brain doesn’t think in words… it thinks in images. Sometimes I struggle trying to explain a painting to someone because my mind hasn’t had enough time to find the right words to describe it. This is definitely why I am a painter and not so much of a writer.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
My name is Sarah Spillers and I am both a painter and an art educator. My current body of work explores Nashville, my hometown, through the use of bright color, vivid texture, and striking lines. It features neon signs and several local businesses. As the city is growing and gathering itself from the aftermath of Covid -19 and the 2020 Christmas bombing, I have aimed to contrast these more gloomy and serious times in capturing the city’s lively upbeat energy. Aside from painting, I teach middle school art in Clarksville, Tennessee. I enjoy showing my students how I am able to sustain a creative life outside of my full-time job. Teaching gives me the opportunity to share my passion for creating with my students and inspire them to do the same. This October I was proudly named Nashville’s “Best Visual Artist” by the Nashville Scene.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
This is a question I get a lot in my direct messages. The best advice I can give anyone in building an audience on social media is… network! Be kind. An opportunity is an opportunity. Nothing is beneath you, be humble. You don’t have to say yes to everyone, choose what you have time for. Be smart with the direct messages (via Instagram) you receive asking if you accept commissions because 90% of the time it is probably a scammer. If the person does not follow you, they are not active on your page, and if they do not ask for something that you typically create then I would ignore it. Sadly enough, scammers see working artists as an easy target. Be active on social media, but not overbearing. Keep your posts simple and sweet. Follow people back… do not be that person who only follows a select number of people. Again, be humble. Follow other creators or art appreciators just because they have a cool account. Maybe they’ll follow you back and you can build a friendship. Support those who you follow, and there’s a chance they may reciprocate. Most importantly… BE GENUINE. Everything above will help you build a supportive community online.
Something else I get asked a lot is how I price/sell my work. I wanted to briefly mention this due to how passionate I am about this topic. DO NOT UNDERVALUE YOURSELF! If you lowball and devalue your own work… how is that going to look to others? Sometimes I see artists so eager for their work to go to a good home that they tremendously drop their prices then have a hard time selling. This breaks some artist’s confidence and kills their urge to keep creating. Do not doubt yourself. Your worth as a creator is not based on how often you sell. I love the quote, “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will”. Your artwork is precious and do not give anyone, as my dad says, clearance prices! If it sells, it sells. If not, move on. It is possible the perfect person has not encountered it yet. Do not let a bad experience diminish your voice. Artists are deserving of so much more. With this being said, art is not all about selling. All of this takes time and everyone has a different end goal for their art.
Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
Yes, I have experienced a time where I felt as if my artwork had been both misunderstood and mischaracterized. In the summer of 2020, I was awarded the Summer Research Grant from Austin Peay State University. I proposed to create a body of work on large canvases depicting foods that were drawn from observation. Over the summer I studied Wayne Thiebaud’s use of color, texture, and space. Studying this painter was actually recommended to me by one of my painting professors, after I completed a large pastel cake with vibrant berries for one of my classes. This was my first-time hearing Wayne Thiebaud’s name and after seeing his work, I was absolutely captivated. I saw parallels between our styles and recognized that I could learn a lot by studying him. In the research phase of my study, I read many articles, watched different interviews, and even ran into similar artists that took inspiration from Thiebaud. One artist with a large following on social media, Sari Shryack, also studied Thiebaud’s work and created a body of work similar to both mine and his. I reviewed her work and saw she took a modern twist on this subject matter and depicted Cheeseballs in one of her paintings. Months later I was on vacation in Destin, Florida and I encountered a 4-foot stack of cheeseballs in a Winn-Dixie. I knew that this was my chance to get my own reference photo and paint my own stack on a 5 foot canvas to incorporate into my study. My painting also grabbed some social media attention, and for the record I did give credit to Sari in the original post. After my show at the university, I began receiving hurtful messages from a few “peers” at Austin Peay that belittled all my efforts in this study and tore me down as not only an artist, but a person. My work was misunderstood for plagiarism, toward both Sari and Thiebaud’s work, and I felt as if I was being mischaracterized. The ex-peers at my university refused to understand my perspective on the situation and I was titled as “Pathetic & Unoriginal”. I spoke to Sari immediately after about the claims and she actually adored my recreation and gave me encouragement to continue painting. My professors and majority of my peers loved my work and I actually sold two pieces to two of my art professors. From this experience I learned quite a bit, but for almost a year I struggled in finding confidence to paint because I was terrified of being mischaracterized as an art thief again. About a year later I learned that, technically, I am an art thief and so is everyone who creates. Everything has, in essence, been done before. I was inspired by these two painters and I did take pieces of their ideas and mash them together along with my own artistic perspective. There’s a great book titled “Steal Like an Artist” written by Austin Klein that elaborates more on this idea and it is actually my favorite book. I recommend all artists give it a read. It speaks on how nothing is original and references Picasso’s famous quote, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”.
Contact Info:
- Website: SarahSpillersArt.com
- Instagram: @SarahSpillersArt
- Facebook: @SarahSpillersArt
Image Credits
Amanda Faye Photography @Amanda.Faye.Photography